


All In Your Mind

by Phia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Moving On, Pining Sherlock, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1684010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phia/pseuds/Phia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is living. Sherlock needs to, too. So he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All In Your Mind

He can't sleep. He's up, and it isn't pretty. There is nothing artful about empty nights. When he told people that he didn't sleep, he told them firmly, because it was his choice. There were cases, and experiences, and simulations. Now, there is nothing but an empty flat and a cold heart and a dark soul.

Sometimes he writes. He can't tell anyone what he thinks because no one is there. Scattered across the city in subways and suburbs, they are busy. Sleeping, poking at criminal evidence. Maybe Victor is writing, too. But no one is here with him. He can't imagine someone appearing, again. He was lucky the first time. The second time, he'd be a definite good luck charm.

* * *

The baby is the most beautiful specimen he has ever seen, after John, of course. She takes after John. Blonde wisps of hair, with wide, curious eyes. All babies are known to be curious, but this one is just - she's not anything Sherlock has seen before. He's seen toddlers and children, huddled to the sides of their mothers when he visited their houses for cases, or carelessly rifling through the fridge. She's beautiful, handcrafted, her ruffled hair woven in with gold. She doesn't make a mess. John did, in his brain and heart and soul.

Sometimes he smiles. The baby smiles too, and cuddles up to Sherlock. He knows that she knows too. She doesn't know Mary, and strays away. She likes the dramatic sweep of Sherlock's coat as he exits and she likes plucking at the strings of his Stradivarius. Mycroft would scoff at all of the sentimental tidbits he has cataloged about her in his brain. He doesn't know how long he will be around, so he feels that it is a necessary inconvenience. Maybe Mycroft would see the sense in that, then.

* * *

It's another sleepless night. John permeates through the room. There is one of his jackets thrown over the back of his chair, and Sherlock toys with the idea of picking it up in his hands and burying his nose into the inside collar. Sweat, introduced by a lovely adrenaline. Aftershave, the generic, store-brand kind. The sharp, unforgiving smell of his soap. There are so many things he might have forgotten that he just needs to remember again.

Sometimes he forgets. He thinks that it is the after effects of growing older, greying, lines carved from the edges of his eyes when he is playing with the baby. Maybe he is trying to bury all of the kind memories so that he doesn't get into the idea of loving John again. Maybe his mind is trying to protect him from perusing over the same idea over and over again. Whatever it is, it's making a terrible racket, because he can't remember the last time he slept.

* * *

He surprises even himself when he calls Victor. He surprises even himself when he finds the right number. Victor's voice sounds rich, rolling, seductive even when he is reeling in surprise that it is Sherlock after all these years. _When was the last time?_ A few months before John, maybe, but the night is drenched with memories of throwing away the sheets and buying new ones.

Sometimes he replaces. John is the one with the hurried hands pinning Sherlock's wrists behind his back. John is the one driving into him, mercilessly, without any worry about how he might feel afterward, the burn when he leans down to seat himself. John is nipping at his neck with every thrust, muttering "Sherlock, Sherlock, so fucking _tight_ , so - " and breaking off with a keening sob after Sherlock clenches around him. " _T_ _u êtes ma petite mort_ ," he mumbles into Sherlock's bare shoulder when he comes.

* * *

_You are my little death_ , Sherlock recalls, when John walks through 221B two weeks later to retrieve his jacket. _Spring cleaning, he must have noticed its loss in his closet_. Sherlock is wearing an overly large T-shirt that dares to slip off of his shoulder when he raises his arm to rub at his hair and moves it back down. John notices the love bite marking his collarbone, and his almost-green eyes widen in a close to imperceptible way. "You, you said that - "

Sometimes he strengthens. He rushes John out with surprising words and throws his jacket in the hall before shutting the door. Judging by his heavier walk down the stairs, John caught the jacket in a perfect hold. Victor's hands are much more delicate, only toughened by years of scribbling in pen in their Uni days. Victor's hands are much more light when he takes him softly, or over the arm of the chair. Victor's hands are the ones he feels rake through his hair that night and his fingers are the ones that scrabble down his neck to end in a loving clutch. 

* * *

The gunman was the dangerous kind because his hands were shaking before he pulled the trigger. Uncertain, first time killer, just wanted to hide the decaying body of his best friend in the boot of the truck he's driving, stolen from his father. Sherlock is trying to tell Lestrade all of these details, his words worn by the nights without sex, which coincidentally happen to be nights without sleeping. Lestrade is trying to rifle through the Belstaff's pockets, groping around blindly for his phone like an alarm-awakened teenager in the dark, but Sherlock mouths "Call Victor" to the detective inspector's confused and panicked expression before falling unconscious.

Sometimes he awakens. Because he made a good decision with those final words. Victor's hand is small in his and impressively familiar. The tip of the smooth pinkie nail on his left hand presses a line into each of Sherlock's knuckles. It is not a bored press, but an exploratory one. Sherlock mumbles in his half-asleep state, shifting around on the hospital bed's creased white sheets. Something about French and newness and moving to Sussex, playing with bees. Victor's accented answer is full of amusement and adoration as he says he agrees to anything. Sherlock doesn't find it overbearing for once. Reassuring is a better word.

* * *

John enters on the second day, his eyes rimmed with shock instead of red. There is an angry speech prepared in his throat, but his words are a cup of soda shaken and set down to clear the bubbles when he finally sees Victor. "What - " he says, and Sherlock doesn't read his body language. He doesn't want to. He is too busy tracing some of the veins dotted with faded punctures that run up Victor's arm and down into the crease behind his elbow. Victor speaks concisely and cutely, and John's expression is one of disbelief. It is not because Sherlock has gotten shot. He stays for a while, answering any extra questions by flipping through the clipboard hanging off the wall near the door, before leaving to the rest of the coloured world.

Sometimes he appreciates. When John asked, "Why didn't you call me?" Sherlock bitterly spat, "What was I to say? 'John, John, I think I'm dying.'" He laughs into Victor's hair, the warm head lightly resting on his chest. Victor's hair is dark brown, almost black, sleek, and straight. His face is smooth and his chest is slightly muscled. His throat vibrates nearer to Sherlock's stomach with accompanying laughter. Those moments are the ones when Sherlock knows that he made the right choice, even though he never really had a choice in the first place.

* * *

His leg heals nicely and his heart heals even better. He sleeps on sexless nights, but on nights with sex, he sweats and sears with sparks and presses himself against Victor like his own personal whore. He likes being treated like he doesn't matter for a short time and he likes being treated like a king for the rest of it. He treats Victor nice, too, because he makes him toast and jam and lays out his clothes every day. There's things like rings and declarations of love, but those are the backdrop to the smooth ending of an accomplished story. 

Sometimes he calls. The baby is no longer a baby, and John is no longer in his thoughts. He tends bees and works on cold case files. There are other consulting detectives and doctoring bloggers that do the work for him. Sometimes his hands are too shaky to text Lestrade, push him to alert the detectives that they need to hide here and find these witnesses. The bees are content, and building their families, and so is he. Victor is softly kissing him on the pulse point on his wrist while his other hand texts; his lover's lips are sticky with honey. Sherlock laughs because it tickles. The warmth of Sussex washes over his beating heart. This is not what he wanted, but it is what they needed. Therefore, it is his death.


End file.
